


lego house

by slainte



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically everybody - Freeform, M/M, Online Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1979700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slainte/pseuds/slainte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With every day that passed, it was getting harder to deny that he was falling for the intense blond student who had never so much as seen his face. Talking to Enjolras was both easy and difficult. Easy because one word on a screen from him could light up Grantaire's whole day, no matter what was happening. Difficult because he felt like he was deluding himself. There were many days when he felt like just curling up in his bed and never getting out because no matter how many jokes he cracked or how many of his problems Enjolras trusted him with, there would never be a day when they would be equal in this, because in real life Grantaire could never live up to whatever expectations Enjolras might make of him from online.</p>
<p>For all he knew, speaking to Grantaire could just be a list of things Enjolras did with his day and nothing more than that. Grantaire felt like he was pushing it, to think Enjolras felt anything about their strange internet friendship at all. Enjolras had never seen him, never heard his voice, never seen the mess he could make of his life if he stopped caring. The day he did meet Grantaire as nothing but himself would be a disaster, so why bother at all? Grantaire just couldn't help himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lego house

**Author's Note:**

> This was written nearly a year ago now, unpublished because while I'd planned it as a two part thing, part two just wasn't coming to me and I wasn't prepared to post part one and leave it unfinished if I wasn't sure where I was going with part two. Now that part two is almost finished, though, I figured it would be a good idea to get some feedback on what I have so far.
> 
> So, here's part one, revised many times over many months, and beta read for me by Alex who is over here --> http://pushingdaisies.co.vu/ (shh, I don't know how to work AO3 or how to embed links here yet, don't look at me.)
> 
> One note, on the use of the word 'fag' in this fic; it is UK/Irish slang for a cigarette, not often used here in the derogatory way. Not that I've heard anyway. I don't use it in an offensive way, just in an attempt to be as accurate to the setting of this AU as I can.
> 
> Uh, I think that's it. Comment, etc, thank/follow Alex for being the first person to suggest this fic idea might actually be good!

**[GRANTAIRE] September**

 

Grantaire didn't have the troubled relationship with his family that most people seemed to think he had, most people meaning everyone but Éponine, to be honest.

He was generally closed off, sure, he didn't join many conversations about home life and family when the other students got into it, but really he just had very little to contribute. He was close to both his parents, though he didn't find much in common with his mother until after his father's death. And it wasn't even a conspiratorial murder that caused it, or anything else that would warrant a reluctance to mention it. It was a simple work accident, and Grantaire sometimes thought that he took up smoking as a way to fill part of the gap left behind once his father was gone. He died when Grantaire was 16, and by 17 he had grown to fill his father's old leather jacket and always made sure a pack of his father's favourite cigarettes still graced the inside pocket. It just made sense to start smoking them, while they were there, and the smell was familiar and comforting.

His mother had only her father, and Grantaire's own father was the one with the familial drama. They didn't speak to that branch of the family, and Grantaire wasn't even sure where many of them were. So it wasn't a troubled childhood that made him refrain from the conversations, more a lack of anything to contribute. For the last 6 years there was only him and his mother, who he was very protective and fond of. Which is why he called her every evening, now that he was moved out of home, when he was finished with class and work, and if he'd had a day that warranted having a bottle of something strong within reaching distance, he always made sure to talk to her before any of it touched his lips.

He was in a pretty good mood when he spoke to her 2 weeks into the new uni year, phone in one hand and leaning his elbows on the kitchen countertop as Éponine typed away nearby.

“I think it's safe to say we're settled in now,” he said in answer to her question. “Well, we've a wall-high pile of laundry already, so.”

“That's because the washing machine doesn't work yet,” Éponine grumbled unseen.

_“Just like home, then,”_ his mother responded dryly in his ear. _“It's a nice place, then? Better than last year?”_

“Couldn't be worse than last year, but yeah, it's pretty decent.” He spoke around a laugh. “You should come down and see it in a few weeks, I'll share with 'Ponine and you can have my room.”

_“I'll definitely think about it,”_ she said, which Grantaire knew meant no, for now anyway. _“When the mess gets too bad I'll come clean up enough to keep you going another few weeks.”_

Grantaire wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of his mum going through his flat, even if he hadn't been here long enough to accumulate any sort of embarassing mess, and even if he wasn't sure what he had to hide. There was probably something, though. “It'll be fine, if we wreck anything we'll just set it in fire and get it replaced. Landlady's got fire insurance.”

_“I don't think that means what you think it means, R, but good luck with that. Tell 'Ponine I said hi.”_

“She says hi back,” Grantaire answered automatically, pointing at the phone and making waving motions when Éponine looked up, frowning.

_“Talk to you tomorrow, then,”_ she said, and Grantaire could hear her grinning. _“Love you!”_

“Love you too, bye, bye,” he trailed off until he heard her disconnect, then stepped back and stretched, glancing at Éponine. “She's threatening to clean the place up in a few weeks, better keep your toys hidden at all times just in case.”

Éponine shrugged from the kitchen table, not looking away from her laptop. “Your mum knows every embarassing thing about me there ever was, a dildo or two isn't gonna shock her.”

“And isn't that sad? What do you want for dinner?” He asked suddenly, raising a hand to scratch at his scalp through his hair while he opened up the nearest cupboards. “What do we have for dinner?”

That did distract her from the screen. “Nothing.”

That meant they'd have to go do some shopping tomorrow, Grantaire realized, or the next time they were both free at the same time. They always had to buy food together, it was a disaster if one of them tried on their own. They found it was cheaper to share most food and eat breakfast and dinner together, when they could, but it meant they had to be sure they were buying something they would both like. And cheaper was good if they were going to have to head out to eat, today.

He sighed. “Do you wanna eat out, or phone a pizza or something?”

Éponine bit her lower lip while she thought about it, glancing down at the laptop screen. Marius was obviously online, Grantaire thought, though he made no comment about it. “Give me ten minutes?” She said eventually. “I'll sign off and get ready to go.”

Grantaire gave her a thumbs up. “Work away, I'm gonna find a clean shirt.”

He passed Éponine's room on his way to his own, pausing in a narrow hallway to peek through the open door while lost in thought for a moment. The first thing she did when they moved into the new apartment was decorate her whole room with the picture's she'd accumulated from last year, and a few from the years before that. Many of them featured Marius, or her and Marius on various nights out. Grantaire liked Marius, but found himself sometimes silently annoyed with him. He knew it wasn't Marius' fault that he was totally blind to how Éponine felt about him, or that Éponine couldn't find the courage to tell him, or that Grantaire had been forbidden by her to get involved. These things just caused a frustration in him, and he sometimes mistakenly directed that frustration on Marius. None of his business, he reminded himself as he broke away and finished the walk to his own room. Not his business until the moments Éponine needed a shoulder.

His room was a lot less... well, less everything at the moment. His suitcase was still in the corner and still half-full, there was a stack of old art projects leaning against the wall beside his wardrobe, and nothing had really been fully unpacked with the exception of some of his clothes and various electronics. He kept meaning to do something like what Éponine had done, but he was just constantly forgetting. He threw himself onto his bed, propping up a pillow to lean against as he sat up to poke around on his laptop for five minutes or so, just long enough to give Éponine time to sign off. His facebook chat and tumblr dashboard both confirmed his speculation about Marius being online, and if he bothered to sign into skype, he wouldn't probably find both Marius and Éponine online, but he was rarely signed in there. Everytime he thought about doing so, he decided he didn't have the concentration there and then to sit down and type prolonged conversations to people the way Éponine could, so he used the program rarely and just had broken conversations on tumblr, or used facebook chat instead of texting when he was out and about on his phone.

Last year, he, Marius and Éponine had nicknamed themselves the three musketeers, like many a trio of friends had. They didn't really care that it was a common nickname for three people, that it was cheesy or stupid or unimaginative, because they were on their way to drunk when they decided on it, and it suited at the time. He and Éponine had known each other for years-- they'd grown up together in the same neighborhood. Grantaire's mother had pretty much adopted Éponine and her little brother, who still stayed with Grantaire's mother often after he and Éponine moved. They made sure to get rooms in the same student village, going in to pay deposits together on rooms next to each other, and they met Marius due to him living in the room across from them. Grantaire noticed immediately what took Éponine a few months to realise in herself, and nothing had changed much since that moment. She never acted too far beyond platonic toward him, Marius continued to see nothing, and the three of them got drunk together every weekend in various bars and nightclubs.

This year Marius was studying abroad until February, and Grantaire and Éponine had decided to rent a flat in the city together rather than live on campus. Grantaire was prone to what he liked to call 'mood swings' when left alone, a thing that he simply labelled as that and had no wish to investigate further, and Éponine needed the company with Marius running around Paris possibly meeting four new girls a day, if Éponine's rants were to be believed. After practically having grown up together, it made sense to move in together. Marius' absence was felt strongly now that they'd returned after the summer break. Éponine spoke to him daily, but Grantaire could still see the change in his best friend, and missing Marius a little himself, they were both pretty unenthusiastic about the new year so far. They'd only been out twice since moving in, during freshers week.

“Are you ready?” She called suddenly, her voice close. “I'm just grabbing my phone!”

On which she'll continue to message Marius while we're out, Grantaire thought with a sigh, shutting his laptop. He had to think of something that would pick them both up soon. “Just coming!” He called back, grabbing his shirt at the hem and pulling it off over his head. He called that shirt his pyjama shirt, and it wasn't really suitable for leaving the house in, even just to go for a bag of chips or something.

He looked at the surface of his suitcase, scratching absently at his hip where he had a tattoo of a magpie. Sometimes just looking at it made him slightly itchy, he often commented. Éponine waited at his bedroom door as he gave himself a messy spray of deodorant, holding his father's jacket out for him once he had the clean shirt pulled on.

“You got money?”

Grantaire paused with one arm in the jacket, patting his back pocket awkwardly before shoving the other arm in. “Yep, I'm good, let's go.”

The walk to find somewhere to eat started quietly, no more than Grantaire expected, given that Éponine was on her phone from the moment they left the apartment building. He didn't begrudge her it, not really. Okay, maybe he did a little. A lot. He was just feeling increasingly disconnected from her, and they were barely one month into Marius' 5 month stay in France. He was starting to feel pretty melancholy and jaded about how the rest of the year was going to go, so it came as a surprise when she suddenly looked up and spoke.

“Courfeyrac says they're at the café already if we wanna go eat with them?”

Grantaire blinked. “Was that who you were talking to? How long've they been there?”

“He said about half an hour, but they didn't eat yet, we gonna head over?”

“Sure, but let's turn around, it's faster to go past the post office.”

By 'they', Grantaire had assumed Éponine meany Courfeyrac and Jehan, who were almost one person at this point, but upon arrival at the french imitation café their group lounged around in too often, Grantaire found more than a few of them there. The three musketeers often joined Courfeyrac and Jehan on nights out, where they would run into the others-- others being Combeferre, Feuilly, Bahorel and two other's now present who Grantaire didn't know too well. As he sat down, they were introduced as Joly and Bosseut.

“Combeferre heard you ran out of food again,” Courfeyrac smiled, taking up an entire couch to himself as he lay out on his back. “He was concerned.”

“Thank you, 'Ferre,” Grantaire placed his hands over his heart, grinning widely and throwing himself into a chair dramatically. “She doesn't feed me, I dunno what I'd do without my friends.”

Éponine flicked him in the ear as she passed him, poking Courfeyrac's feet with a stern “Move over, idiot,” to find a seat somewhere. Courfeyrac pulled a face as she pushed him to one end of the couch, seating herself at the other end and beckoning to Jehan, who was returning from the counter with a steaming mug, to take the space in the middle.

“We're all out of food today,” Bahorel declared depressingly, arms crossed over the chair he was sitting in backwards and his chin resting on his arms.

“Which is why we're all here, enjoying each other's sober company,” Feuilly finished sarcastically. “They're a lively bunch so far.”

“This is one of the few times we've all met up without drinks, actually, isn't it?” Courfeyrac pointed out, looking around at the group with raised eyebrows, pointing at Joly and Bosseut. “R didn't even know your names until now!”

“Last time I saw them they were human pillars. My legs weren't working and pillars don't have names.” Grantaire defended himself with an entirely straight face. “And who says we need to stay sober?”

“My 9am lecture says.” Bahoral spoke again, tone no brighter than before.

Combeferre made a snorting noise. “You don't go to your lectures enough for them to communicate anything,” he pointed out. “And if the one thing they do communicate is that you shouldn't drink, then I don't think you'd listen very well if you did go.”

“Sadly, some of us do have early lectures we plan to attend,” Jehan spoke up. “So if we're planning a night out, I'll have to say no.”

“No night out today,” Feuilly agreed. “Or any other tuesday. Too tired.”

“You all wound me.” Grantaire sighed. “Terrible examples to the younger students.”

“Can we please just eat now?” Bossuet spoke up, changing the subject. “I'm starving.”

What followed was a sort of mess of conversation that Grantaire couldn't really follow as everyone decided what they would eat, and threw in a few stories about the week they were having so far. They were good people, he'd decided early last year. Well, the ones he knew well enough, at least, but Joly and Bossuet seemed fun. They kept his mind busy and, when occassion called for it, his glass full. They were easy people to enjoy, and it cheered him up to see Éponine cheering up, too. It was also very difficult to be in a bad mood once there was a plate of food in front of him.

“Marius says hello to everyone,” Éponine said shortly after a familiar pop notification from her phone. “He says he misses the café, he's eating leftover lasagne or something 'cause he has no time for dinner.”

“Oh, ew, Enjolras' veggie lasange?” Courfeyrac pulled a face. “Ask him if it's the veggie lasagne.”

“Poor man,” Combeffere added.

“That's his roommate?” Éponine asked, typing already. “Is lasagne bad?”

“At the start of the summer he decided he had to know how to cook for himself,” Courfeyrac elaborated. “He's still-- I say learning, but...”

“Enjolras is determined to eat everything he tries to cook, and it probably tastes fine to him because he made it, but not so much to us.” Combeferre covered his mouth as he spoke, chewing while speaking. “The lasagne must taste best to him because he keeps making it.”

Courfeyrac leaned over to look at the screen of Éponine's phone while everyone asked questions all at once about their friends abroad, and Grantaire used the distraction to discreetly add some of the contents of his hip flask to his coke. He didn't know the other student Marius was abroad with, although everyone else but Éponine did, but anyone having trouble cooking amused Grantaire. He cooked nearly everything he ate, and it was one of the easiest things about his life. They ended up staying at the café a lot longer than planned, as everyone split into smaller pairs and trios to socialize after their food. Grantaire found himself spending most of the time talking to Bahorel, who he found visited the same gym as him, but never at the same time it would seem. That evening at the café was the first time Grantaire had seen the man outside of a bar. His hip flask was mostly depleted by the time they all filed out into the street, so he found himself decently buzzed and in a pretty light-hearted mood. In fact, his mood was the highest it had been since he left home again at the end of the summer, and a quick glance at Éponine walking alongside him as they made their way home told him she was feeling much better, too.

“We should do that more often,” he said, as casually as he could manage, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What d'you think of them?”

“The new guys were pretty quiet, but I always liked the others.” She wouldn't say anymore about it, but she did get up humming to herself the next morning.

* * *

 

The downward slope started the day Granaire walked into the kitchen during one of Éponine's skype calls with Marius. As much as Grantaire liked to complain about the guy's blindness to her feelings when Éponine would listen, he had to admit he was a very, very decent friend. Grantaire rarely kept in touch with any of his own friends except for a few facebook messages about when they would meet next.

“R's here,” Éponine spoke at the screen, gesturing to where Grantaire moved off camera. “Marius was asking what the noise was,” she explained to him, lifting her head for a moment before facing the laptop again.

“I do live here, dear Marius,” Grantaire spoke loudly until he was leaning over Éponine's shoulder, a sideways smirk on his face as he winked. “Didn't you hear about all the fun we're having living off-campus without you? Don't forget us so soon over there!”

On screen, Marius looked well. He'd gained a bit of a tan, and was wearing a plain v-neck shirt he often wore as pyjamas, sitting on the edge of a couch with what was definitely a kitchen behind him. It must be one of his rare evenings off. He rolled his eyes at Grantaire's comment, raising his middle finger at the camera for a moment before smiling fondly. “So nice to see you haven't drank yourself to death yet, R.”

Grantaire pointed a finger. “The year is still young, don't underestimate me.” he said, before moving off to the kettle.

Contrary to the popular belief of his friends, he was very aware that they disliked how often he needed a few drinks in the evening and how the weekends were, to him, an excuse to fit in more time for drinking. It was much easier to joke about it with them than discuss it, however. They worried much less when he made jokes, and it made it easier for them to drink with him when they weren't wondering if they were enabling him or not. He cared that they worried, of course-- but about all else he cared very little.

“I try not to,” he heard Marius say through the speakers. “I really do.”

Grantaire wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but he felt Marius was adding a double meaning to those words. Éponine was generally unsurprised by the many states of drunkeness she's seen Grantaire in, but Marius always seemed to carry a little hope for him no matter what happened. Grantaire clicked the button on the kettle and moved to stand behind Éponine again, determined to change the subject. “I see you've caught a little sun, been lounging around outside? And here we thought you were so busy!”

Marius did laugh then, thankfully. “'Ponine said the same thing, I think they just get warm Septembers over here. I'm not as bad as Enjolras, though, the sun's dyed him even more blond than before.”

“Marius is out flyering in the sun a lot, apparentl--”

“What?”

Éponine's explanation was interrupted by a second voice on the other end of the call, and Marius appeared to bite his lip to hide a smile while looking somewhere to his left. “Nothing, I was talking about the sun here.”

“Paris isn't that much warmer than London, Marius, it's just a warm spell.”

Grantaire couldn't tell much about the person speaking just from the muffled voice-- couldn't even hear the voice very well, but at that moment the speaker passed into view behind Marius, padding his way to the kitchen on bare feet to write frantically on a piece of paper stuck to the fridge. Now, Grantaire reminded himself that what he was seeing, he was seeing on a low quality webcam and was probably missing a lot of detail in someone standing so far from the computer, but the reminder didn't really stop him from staring all that much. For a moment, he forgot that Éponine was right next to him and Marius was right there at the front of the image, his eyes focussed only on this-- Marius had called him Enjolras, said he was dyed by the sun, but Grantaire thought-- a bit dramatically, he admitted-- that he'd absorbed it. He just stopped short of physically glowing. Sound faded away as Grantaire made out curls, the curve of a neck and shoulders under the red t-shirt, arms as sun-kissed as the yellow hair. He just couldn't see the face, and it was driving him mad. He needed to sketch this person, his pencils were just in his room-- but Marius and Éponine, and the skype call. Focus.

“R?” He blinked when he noticed Marius frowning at the screen, and stopped himself from jumping when Éponine spoke beside him.

“No, the sound's fine.” She raised a hand and clicked her fingers beside his ear. “R!”

“Sorry, I just realised I forgot a-- sorry!”

He leaned away from Éponine quickly and almost jogged away to his room, ignoring the sound of the kettle he'd forgotten he was boiling, and closing his bedroom door before hearing any more of Éponine and Marius' conversation. An hour and a half later he had the good grace and self-respect to be a little embarassed about the fact that he'd gone straight to his laptop and tracked down Enjolras' facebook. Thinking back he decided he probably went braindead for a about twenty minutes. His profile picture was of him and Marius, from instagram or something by the looks of it, and while Grantaire was a little disappointed at the fact that Enjolras was wearing a hat that hid his hair, he was a little blown away by being able to see his face. The smile he wore was soft, barely there, and even through the slight hint of red-eye, Grantaire could make out the deep blue of his eyes, especially when compared in the same picture with Marius' lighter blue ones. He scrolled down a little-- kicked himself when he saw that Enjolras attended the same uni as him-- and gave a frustrated sigh to find that all the posts were hidden to public. Unsurprising, he supposed, and given that he was creeping on the page he guessed he had no right to be frustrated, but it didn't stop him.

He went back to photos and found that the only album he could view was profile pictures, which he promptly spent many minutes poring over. As soon as some energy returned to his motor nerves, he found himself rising from the bed and fetching his sketching equipment. He didn't think as he did it, beyond being grateful for the fact that he wasn't thinking-- he didn't want to be that aware of how creepy he was being-- he just sat down an started drawing. Éponine knocking on the door was what eventually stopped him-- a pretty pointless action, he thought, considering she opened the door and walked right in afterwards without waiting for a response.

“You okay? You were all weird.” She said, getting straight to the point as she crossed her arms. He saw her eyes move across the room, probably trying to look for a bottle of something without making it seem like she was looking. Her eyes landed on the screen of his laptop, which he reached over and slammed shut so hard it probably broke. There was silence for a moment as she frowned at him, eyes slightly wide and mouth open as if she was about to speak, and while he stared back, expression akin to a deer caught in the headlights. “Were you just--?”

“'Ponine,” he started, dropping his pencil. “Don't laugh. But I think I need help.” He turned the sketchpad over to show her what he'd been doing, watching her face and trying to hold himself still, the urge to laugh out loud at his situation and the look on her face battling with his wishes to not appear like huge idiot.

His hopes were totally dashed when she laughed first, and he couldn't help himself. “Oh my god,” she breathed out between laughs, moving over to deposit herself on the bed beside him, eyes on the sketchbook. “You're an actual creep, R.”

* * *

 

Now that she'd seen him at it once, Grantaire had absolutely no shame in checking out Enjolras' facebook every now and again around the flat in front of her. He drew the line when it came to telling this story to the others, though, and given the secrets he kept for her, Éponine was more than happy to keep her silence for him. She did make comment on it every now and again, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively while asking if he wanted to join her for a skype call with Marius, but she went easy on him, thankfully. Once there was an outside view on it, though, he realised how that hour and a half spent stalking and drawing in his room had shaken him. He made sure not to tell her that, though, or she would actually be worried, then. It was impossible to ignore the small flip his stomach made everytime he found himself looking at that profile picture again, and even though it made him feel vaguely ill, he craved the sensation.

One week into this, and three more drawings later, Éponine decided to make more comment on it. “You never get all into somebody, though, not like this,” she said from her armchair, directly across from the couch he was sitting in.

“I know,” he responded miserably.

“I mean, I've seen you have one night stands with someone because they were hot, or seen you drop everything to draw, like, a random stranger standing at a fucking, weird angle or something, but--”

“I know,” he repeated, misery heightened.

“So what is it?” She finished.

Grantaire paused on his drawing, frowning down at it. This was the fifth since that first sketch in his room, and he still couldn't get it right. “That, I do not know.” He answered eventually, closing the sketchpad and throwing it on the couch beside him.

They sat in silence for a few moments with just the TV as background noise, Éponine watching him, and him glowering at the offensive sketchpad. His good mood from the other week hadn't lasted long through his new predicament, the worst part being that he wasn't even sure what the predicament was. He went to class, he thought about drawing Enjolras. He went to his 3 evening shifts and all day Saturday shift at Tesco, and he thought about drawing Enjolras. He sat down with more than a few drinks in him to brainstorm on an assignment, and he thought about drawing Enjolras while determinedly avoiding his laptop in case he did something stupid while drunk. He couldn't even classify it as a mood-swing. It didn't come with the typical sinking fear that none of his friends genuinely wanted him around, that everyone was just humoring him, that his mother was disappointed in him or that he was good for nothing but dying before 30 and becoming a horror story for convincing young people in rehab clinics to get their lives together. This new thing came with no consideration for himself-- just a need to see Enjolras again, and a following need to capture his image in a drawing. It was worse than a mood-swing. In this, he barely existed in his own mind, and he had always been a comfort to himself when he felt invisible to everything around him. Now, he barely even had that.

He needed a strong pick-me-up. “Hey, 'Ponine,” he spoke suddenly, physically tearing his eyes away from the sketchbook. “We should have a housewarming. A flatwarming, even.”

She blinked, then frowned. “Okay,” she replied, slowly. “And invite who?”

He shrugged. “Our usual drinking crowd. Courfeyrac, Jehan-- the others, even Joly and Bossuet. Would they come, do you think?”

“Courfeyrac and Jehan would,” Éponine nodded, looking around the room as she considered the idea. “And they would drag the others. Yeah, it would work. We should do it.”

“Really?”

She gave a gentle smile. “Yeah, totally. It'll do us both good.” Grantaire and Éponine rarely needed to discuss each other's feelings, since they had learned so well over the years to read the other, when it was most important, and Grantaire was very grateful to have a friend like her at times.

“This weekend? Friday?”

“That's in two days, but..” She shrugged, pushing herself up off the armchair as she stood. “Why not? I'll go make a facebook event.”

* * *

 

Stumbling across Enjolras' tumblr on the day of the housewarming was probably the worst thing to happen that week. This time Grantaire wasn't even actively searching (or stalking if he was to go with Éponine's description). He was just lurking his dashboard while waiting for his rice to cook, when he saw Marius reblog a picture of himself from a user Grantaire didn't recognise. The picture was of Marius pulling one of his famous ridiculous awkward expressions while trying to pose for a photo, carrying a stack of papers in his hands. Grantaire only glanced at the caption, his heart stopping and his fingers moving to immediately click on the original poster once he saw the words 'my roommate'.

It was wonderful and terrible at the same time. He found everything he was missing from the facebook pictures-- he found the personality in the person. He was enraptured and repelled, initially. It was the words that repelled him, he found as he scrolled on, and on, and on, rather than the person himself. He found himself holding back a smile at certain text posts-- one complaining about the early hour, another describing a sudden urge for fish and chips... some of them were simply-- and he loathed using this word-- adorable, when applied to the stern expressions in his profile photos and the nearly fanatical posts not tagged as 'personal'. Enjolras was very involved in current events, social justice, politics... everything Grantaire was aware of and somewhat knowledgeable in, as much as anyone could be while also determined to avoid.

This was what repelled him. The words were forcing him to think about the things contained in them, when he was very happy to simply not care. Grantaire had by no means what one would call a difficult life, no more so than most others his age. Which is why he felt-- no, knew, that he had no right to complain. He labelled his mood swings as just that and refused to delve any deeper because weren't there others who had it much worse, who were worth the energy of people like Enjolras? He had a roof over his head, a caring mother and best friend, he was getting an education, unlike many others-- his problems were his own and all to do with himself, therefore he couldn't imagine asking others to carry them with him. Why would he want to add to these worries? It must be exhausting to be Enjolras, he thought, pushing against the system this much, along with keeping his life together.

But long after his rice had burned and had been pulled away from the stove, he had read so much that he started to feel like he knew the man, and Grantaire realised, Enjolras could do it. Grantaire spent each day focussing on the task at hand-- showering, eating, studying, working, and when there was nothing else, drinking. He gave himself little time to think. He needed to keep his mind busy because it would all fall apart if he didn't, and he was barely keeping it together even with a method to his madness. The only thing holding it all together, he thought, was respect for his friends, and the belief-- no, fact, that he had no right to fall apart when others carried a heavier weight. Enjolras seemed more than capable to not only keep his life together, but to develop it, work on it, and find time to actively worry about and work on other people's lives too, be it the oppressed or the oppressors.

And he could do it, too, Grantaire believed that he could. But was his effort wasted? If it were himself making the effort, Grantaire would answer that question to the affirmative almost immediately. He couldn't imagine one person, especially one such as himself, actually managing to change anything. But Enjolras? Grantaire was uncomfortable with the fact that he couldn't say for certain that yes, the effort was wasted. He'd spent all this time safely believing that everything was inevitable, that there was no use pushing against the current, that joy had to be found somewhere.... He didn't understand himself now that he was uncertain about this.

He shut his laptop suddenly, and took in a deep breath to steady himself. He needed a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, he decided. He reached across the table to drag the battered box of Malboro toward him, drawing one out and holding it in his lips while lighting it with shaking hands. He sucked in a few breaths to get it lit, then glanced at the clock as he took the first steadying drag. His friends would be here soon, and he no longer had time to start cooking all over again. He stood up when he felt a little steadier and reached for the burned rice, now cooled down, and dumped it, leaving the pot in the sink when he moved to the cupboard above for one of the bottles of whiskey he and Éponine had bought for the night.

* * *

 

 

**[ENJOLRAS] October**

 

“No, no, I've got time, I'm just leaving the flat now. I've got a fifteen minute walk.” Enjolras held his phone against his ear as he pulled his keys from the door of his shared flat with Marius, his laptop bag in his other hand. He turned around and threw the keys to Marius where he stood at the stairs so that he could strap his laptop to his back and free his hands while Combeferre continued to speak at the other end of the phone.

“I've nothing new to catch you up on, really.” He said, and Enjolras could hear the sleep in his voice. He knew that today was Saturday, a day during which Combeferre usually slept in, then abandoned all forms of communication to go for a run for an hour or two, and shouldn't really be phoning him right now. He felt a stab of guilt at how little he had checked in with his friends back home lately. He'd been so busy-- but no, he still could have found a moment here and there to save Combeferre from waking himself up to catch Enjolras when he knew he had a few minutes to spare.

“I should be phoning you, and waking you up, you know,” he commented, going for an idle tone even though he knew Combeferre could read between the lines. “You should be cursing at me for having you up so early on a Saturday and for interrupting your routine.”

“Oh I'm not running from a fire today,” Combeferre replied, voice cracking a little. “I was out last night, for much longer than I planned.”

Enjolras frowned as he practically hopped down the stairs with Marius. They were only on the second floor, so they didn't have far to go to check their letterbox before heading out. “Are you hungover, 'Ferre?” Enjolras asked, equally shocked and amused.

“It's not my fault, Courfeyrac's been dragging me out for the second weekend in a row, now. You know what he's like.”

Enjolras did know what Courfeyrac was like, though he'd managd to avoid getting well and truly drunk at the hands of their dark-haired friend so far. He learned very early that if he always had a glass in hand that was at least half-full, Courfeyrac tended to not attempt to force more drinks on him. “You're all falling apart without me to supervise.” He said, voice stern. Combeferre knew when to take him seriously, so he wasn't worried about offending.

“It's very difficult being the only voice of reason, I'm feeling very sorry for myself.”

“Probably much harder when you're so often drunk,” Enjolras had to smile and wave a hand in Marius' direction as they walked, when he noticed the other student glance his way with worry written all over his face. Marius was not as good at reading Enjolras as Combeferre and Courfeyrac were.

“And with a larger flock. We'll need a name, soon, if we grow any bigger in number.”

“What's that?”

“'Ponine, and her friend R she's moved in with.”

“Éponine?” Enjolras raised his eyebrows, looking over at Marius. “Marius didn't mention.”

“Mm, we were at their housewarming last Friday, we all went out on Saturday, last night--”

“--It was her birthday, yeah, Marius did mention that. What sort of name is R?”

Combeferre didn't reply right away, and Enjolras heard a faint beeping on his friend's end. “I have to go, sorry, Courfeyrac is trying to get through and I told him to phone when he wanted a lift from 'Ponine and R's place.”

“It's fine, don't worry about it,” Enjolras adjusted the back on his back, pausing in his steps for a moment. He saw Marius stop too. “Talk this evening instead? I'll be on skype.”

“Oh, will you?” Combeferre sounded amused. “Speak tonight then.”

They exchanged quick goodbyes, and once his phone was away he looked up to find Marius raising an eyebrow at him. “You're never on skype.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes and started walking again. “I'm never this behind with my friends, either. I thought you were keeping me up to date?” They bumped shoulders before managing to fall into a matching rythm while walking, and Marius shrugged.

“There wasn't much to tell, they've all been busy or out.” He explained, watching his feet as he spoke. “If they're not working they're in the Musain and they're out at the weekends. I only hear from 'Ponine and R, so that's how I know.”

“Who's R?” Enjolras asked. He'd forgotten for a moment that he was curious when Combeferre had mentioned the name. “I don't remember hearing the name before.”

“You probably heard me say Grantaire instead?”

Now he remembered. He'd met Éponine more than a few times, but he'd never met Marius' other friend. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Enjolras lost in thought and Marius reluctant to interrupt, moving into single file when they were on the smaller roads. Enjolras still had 4 months left in Paris, before doing 3 months more at home, followed by summer break. When he thought about how much he still wanted to do while he was here, 4 months didn't feel like enough, but when he thought about what he was missing at home, how disconnected he felt from his friends..... Enjolras had known Combeferre and Courfeyrac since high school, and the 3 of them went on to attend not only the same college, but the same uni, too. He spent every summer break within walking distance from both of them, so it was strange to be so far away for so long.

The first month had flown by. He couldn't complain about being in Paris, though, or about being there with Marius. He found last year that Marius was very easy to get along with, that they had a lot in common, and he was more than eager to do the work involved with the two semesters abroad, and to make the most out of it. Enjolras would have gone crazy if he'd been stuck with an unenthusiastic partner. Marius didn't have as much French as Enjolras, but he had enough, and he was picking up more everyday, so they were doing well. He really couldn't complain. He just couldn't deny that he missed his friends, either.

He did sign into skype that night. He had a video call with Combeferre, while he and Combeferre also spoke to Courfeyrac in their group conversation Enjolras had saved to his contacts. He felt much better after catching up with them, and made a promise to himself to maybe sign into skype for a few hours weekly, so that they didn't have to make all the effort. He remembered his first month of uni last year-- how hectic everything had been, but how he was lucky enough to get a room in the same building-- even if it wasn't the same floor-- as Combeferre and Courfeyrac, the sudden change as they met new people and made new friends out of some of them, the sponsored student nights in the nearby bars and clubs that always happened throughout the first month. This year he'd thrown himself right into his work once he'd gotten settled into Paris, and a month later he found himself midly panicked about getting left behind while he was gone, but a few minutes of rational thought dispelled the panic. He knew Combeferre and Courfeyrac better than that, he would just have to catch up a little when he got home.

He put his laptop away when it got late, moving out to the kitchen with his phone to make some tea before going to sleep. Their sitting room and kitchen were all in the same room, and Marius was there, still up and on his own laptop. He often got distracted, Enjolras noticed, and would sit there in the dark for hours before realising it wasn't bright anymore. He jumped when Enjolras turned on a light. “What time is it?”

Enjolras checked his phone. “Eleven fifty-three.”

“Oh....” Enjolras supressed a smile and left Marius to his devices as he went to flick the kettle on, moving to the other side of the kitchen to grab a cup, sugar, and teabags all at once. They really should move the kettle to where everything else was, he thought absently as he dropped two spoons of sugar and a teabag into the empty cup. “What time are we up tomorrow?”

Enjolras looked over at Marius as he tapped a rythm into the kettle. He looked exhausted, yawning as he waited for an answer. “We aren't. Tomorrow is Sunday.”

Marius brightened up almost instantly, closing his laptop with a grin and stretching in his chair. “How were Combeferre and Courfeyrac?”

Enjolras found himself breaking into a small smile as he poured hot water into his cup. He definitely felt a lot better after getting in touch. “Good. Jehan kept taking over for Courfeyrac so it was confusing at times, but generally they seem to be doing good. Éponine?” Marius shrugged, blinking sleepily.

“She's been better, but she can handle it.”

Enjolras was a little curious about that, but he didn't want to push. He didn't know that much about Éponine, he realised, didn't even have her on facebook, but she and her roommate seemed to be featuring prominently in the lives of his friends these days. “Do you think it'll be same, when we go home?” He asked, quietly, not even noticing that he was speaking out loud until he said it.

“What?”

He blinked, squeezing out his teabag and lowering it into the bin. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head as he stirred in the milk. “Just thinking, it's nothing.”

“It'll be fine,” Marius answered very easily anyway. Enjolras saw him stand in the corner of his eye. “Don't leave them behind and they won't leave you behind.”

Enjolras supposed he had a point, there, even if he did just imagine himself pestering them so much that they couldn't possibly ignore him, even while doing everything with new people. Marius was very simple with his wording in anything, but he always reached a meaningful conclusion with them. “Thank you,” he said after a moment, looking up to give Marius a smile.

“Goodnight.”

He sipped at his tea after Marius left, alone with his thoughts until he was finished and an idea had occurred to him. He rinsed out his cup and made sure to switch everything off before wandering off to his room and changing into pyjamas, but before he turned in, he pulled up the facebook app on his phone, tapping into the search bar. He paused when he found what he was looking for, finger hovering above the 'add friend' button, before he made his decision and just went for it. He glanced once more at the profile picture of Éponine in a red beanie, then locked the phone and put it on to charge.

* * *

 

 

**[GRANTAIRE] October**

 

Grantaire loved Halloween.

He loved it because some of his favourite memories were of Halloween with Éponine and then with Gavroche, when they would take him trick or treating before leaving him with Grantaire's mother and heading off to get reasonably pissed. At uni, Halloween was one of the big party events of the year, when he could get more than reasonably pissed and nobody would be sober enough to care. This year was promising to be good, with Courfeyrac hosting a party in the flat he shared with Jehan, and Grantaire had asked for longer shifts at work between now and then because he simply refused to be broke.

Which is why he was about twelve times more tired than he would usually find himself on a Sunday evening, being a mixture of hungover and just exhausted. He dragged his feet as he made his way straight to his room when he got home from his shift, pulling his shoes and his Tesco fleece off, not even bothering to check where they landed. He was more interested in a cup of Irish coffee.

“That you?” he heard Éponine call from the kitchen.

“It's a bit late to be asking, if it wasn't,” he pointed out, squeezing her shoulder fondly has he shuffled past her. “You'd be dead by now.”

“I forgot I had a surprise for you until I heard you come in.” She turned in her chair to face him. The combination of the grin she wore and the raised eyebrows scared him a little. “Do you want your coffee first?”

“I dunno, do I?” He frowned, suddenly feeling a lot more awake than a moment ago.

“Probably. How was work?”

Grantaire wasn't really sure what to say to that-- he had to slow his brain down for a moment to think about his answer instead of focussing on the amount of 'surprises' Éponine would feel like springing on him. “It was okay I guess, I was on till for a while. What's going on?”

Éponine shook her head, still grinning, then turned to her laptop screen. “No coffee, then?”

He moved to stand beside her, following her gaze and nudging her playfully. “Just show me. Please? I drink to much and smoke almost enough to be genuinely worried about a heart attack, I'm not as young as I used to be, 'Ponine.”

“Not as young, maybe, but not old. Quit smoking and drinking if you're so worried.”

“Please?”

She side-eyed him, smirking, then rolled her eyes as if she hadn't planned on showing him in the first place. “Look what I got today.” She raised a hand to point at the screen, and he followed as she swapped tabs to facebook and clicked on her friend requests. One outstanding. From Enjolras.

“What.”

“Right?” She laughed. “What do you want me to do? I'll agree to give you some stalking time daily, but when it starts getting any more weird--”

“Accept it!” He interrupted, nudging her again. “Why've you been sitting on that all day? Why did he add you?”

Éponine leaned her head back as she laughed out loud. “I didn't want to miss your reaction! I don't know why he added me. I guess because of Marius?”

Grantaire thought he should make an effort to speak to Marius more. Éponine had been laughing at him for a few weeks now, since he gave up trying to hide the amount of sketches he'd been attempting, and he had to show her Enjolras' tumblr because he had to vent some emotion on that subject. He didn't tell her the specifics of his frustrations, he just needed to show someone. Given that she knew pretty much everything by now, he wasn't worried about trying to act coy about it around her. “Are you clicking yes or am I gonna have to wrestle that keyboard from you?”

“Patience, young one. So you're definitely cool with me accepting it?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Éponine turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “You haven't even followed him on tumblr yet.”

“I'm building up to it, hit yes.”

“If you promise to follow him I'll hit yes.”

Grantaire paused. “I hate you sometimes.”

“But not all the time.” She shrrugged. “Just agree and I'll accept the request.”

Grantaire thought about it. If he were to name every person who followed him, he'd fail horribly, and sometimes he didn't even notice a new follower for days given that he turned off email notifications. Following Enjolras wasn't that big of a deal. He probably won't even notice, or investigate. “Alright, fine, go go go.”

He felt her shoulders shake with silent laughter where he leaned against her, and she slid off her chair once she'd accepted. “I'll make the coffee, then,” she huffed through a smile, watching as he quickly took her spot in the chair.

“Irish mine up, please?” He called. “Thank you, I love you, I'll kiss your feet once I can get out of this chair.” He didn't look up when she hummed in reply, clicking on the link to Enjolras' timeline and cursing when he realized he left his cigarettes in the pocket of his work fleece. He hopped off the chair and practically jogged to his room to grab them, panicking for a moment when he couldn't find his lighter only to remember it was in the pocket of his jeans.

Once he was back in the kitchen and seated again, Éponine placed a steaming cup in front of him and he smiled up at her gratefully through the cigarette in his mouth. Smoke first, coffee after. Surrounded by a cloud of smoke, he was feeling a little more confident that he wasn't going to fall off the chair at some stage, and he breathed slowly as he began to scroll. Éponine, thankfully, disappeared to watch some TV, probably to give him peace since she didn't really watch much TV. She would download whatever she wanted to watch, or pull up their shared Netflix account on her laptop, but she was terrible at sitting down and watching TV. He made a mental note to make her a really nice breakfast in bed the next day.

He learned several things about Enjolras as he scrolled, and took a very long drag of his cigarette or a very big mouthful of coffee whenever he passed a new photograph. He wondered if Éponine would deem saving a few of them to a pen drive for drawing purposes 'more weird' and withdraw his stalking privelages? He could probably work by memory, for a while, anyway. He found that Enjolras was both very, very friendly, and more social that he thought, judging by the frequency of his being tagged in photos by others. He was also very angry, often sharing links to articles and peititions, adding his own commentary on why they were important. Grantaire even found himself opening some of the articles in another tab, a few times, his interest piqued by the words accompanying the status. When his coffee was finished, it made sense to light another cigarette while he was sitting there reading, and his third was halfway burned down when Éponine re-appeared, arms crossed, to kick him off.

“C'mon, are you gonna read his entire page? You've gotta be over a year back by now.”

Grantaire nodded, pulling the cigarette away from his lips and looking to his left so that he wasn't breathing smoke into her face. “Last status I read was finishing college exams.”

“That's definitely enough background info,” she said, sitting down across from him and dragging the laptop over to herself. “From now on you're only allowed to catch up from the day before, once a day. Got it?”

He flicked some ashes into the ashtray, heaving a sigh. “What's wrong with me, 'Ponine?”

“You're a creep, that's all.” She said, grinning. He didn't reply. He appreciated the jokes, he really did, but there was enough abnormalities about him, things his friends tolerated, like his drinking, his inability to focus on long conversations with them, suddenly dropping whatever was happening when he saw a-- a tree or a house or a pigeon with a cigarette butt in its mouth, that he wanted to draw. He knew he was just looking for her to lie to him and tell him this wasn't weird. “R.” She said suddenly, sternly, and when he looked up, she was looking right at him. “I wouldn't suggest going around telling the others you're stalking their friend, but you know I'm not judging, right? I know what you're like.”

He looked pressed his cigarette into the ashes to put it out, watching the movements. “And what am I like?”

He heard the rustle of her shirt as she shrugged. “You're creative. You focus on the beautiful things because you hate the rest. You draw them and keep them forever, sometimes. It's less unusual when you're stopping to like, draw a stranger looking at their phone or something, cause you don't know them and you don't want to know them.” But he wants to know Enjolras, he guessed was what she was getting at. When he thought about it, he supposed he did. He already felt like he knew so much about him, but-- he really couldn't make sense of his thoughts.

“And everyone else will freak out about me drawing their friend.”

“I dunno about freaking out but they'd definitely stop to think about it for a minute.” He looked up, and saw she was smiling again. “You still have to keep up your end of the deal, you know.”

Oh, that's right. He should go on tumblr. He had his phone in his pocket, but he left it there. He wasn't really worried about following Enjolras anymore, figuring it was just the internet, which he could always avoid, but he still wanted his laptop and his room instead. “Alright, alright. Poke me to make dinner in a bit, yeah?” He asked, rising from the chair.

“I'll give it half an hour, I've got a few things to do anyway.”

“Thank you, 'Ponine.” She just gave him a wide smile in reply, so he wandered off to his room.

He had a desk in here, but he rarely used it, preferring to lounge out on his bed instead, when he could. The desk was currently covered in his own sketches of famous pieces, so when he grabbed his laptop, he propped up his pillows and stretched out. He knew he should just hit follow, close the laptop, and go eat or do some laundry or something to busy himself, but he was entirely unsurprised when he found himself scrolling again after he eventually did follow. He didn't find much beyond the usual-- it seemed that when Enjolras shared an article or a petition on facebook, he did the same on tumblr, whether it was reblogging it or posting it himself. There other posts, too-- mostly from television shows, some scenery.... There was one post tagged as 'personal' since he last checked. _“_

 

> _Really didn't know how much I needed those 3 hours sat on skype until now, I need to catch up with my friends at home more often.”_

He was probably talking about Courfeyrac and the others. It felt very strange to Grantaire that they were both close friends with the same people, yet they had never met, and Enjolras probably had no idea he even existed. He closed Enjolras' page, deciding to check his facebook and his dashboard before going and making dinner. Feuilly was engaging him in a poke war for 2 weeks now, one he was probably winning since it often took Grantaire the rest of a day to respond. He had a message on tumblr, so he clicked into his inbox then swapped back to facebook while it was loading. Éponine, right on time, both poked him and wrote on his timeline to remind him about dinner, and Courfeyrac was commenting to demand some, too. 'If you and Jehan get here in 40 minutes you're welcome to some', he added, swapping tabs again.

When he went back to his tumblr inbox, his stomach did a sickening flip again and a cold sensation in his chest followed.

 

> _“Hello, thanks for following. I see you go by R in your description and sorry for annoying you if I'm wrong, but is your name Grantaire, who lives with Éponine? Again, sorry if I'm mistaking you for someone else.”_

Ohhhhhhh shit. He read the message over more times than he remembered, letting it sink in more and more. First of all, Enjolras must have checked his blog before messaging, which sort of horrified him considering how messy his blog was compared to Enjolras'. Grantaire was all stupid text posts about his day and stupid gifs and more Breaking Bad posts than really neccesary. The next thing that hit him, was that Enjolras sort of knew who he was, or he knew what his full name was and who he lived with, at least. Probably from Marius. He heard more notifications from facebook, probably Éponine again, so he scratched his head as he frantically sought something normal to respond with, something normal, and calm, and smooth if at all possible. After a few minutes, he settled started typing.

 

> _“No problem, sorry for inflicting my blog on you, lmao. My name is Grantaire, yes, but Grantaire-who-lives-with-Éponine is more of a title I'd say. I saw you in replies and stuff with Marius, I hope you're feeding him enough.”_

After hitting 'answer privately', he slammed the laptop closed and ran to speak to Éponine.

* * *

 

 

**[ENJOLRAS] October**

 

Enjolras gripped his umbrella tighter, aiming the top at the wind so that it didn't break or get away from him when he took one of his hands off the handle to retrieve his phone. It beeped loudly in his pocket, and he knew from the tone that it was just an email but he wanted to check it anyway. He hunched his shoulders and pulled the umbrella over his face to protect the phone as he unlocked it, pausing in his steps. Enjolras had this annoying problem with doing most tasks while walking. Typing and drinking, be it from a bottle or a cup, being two of the hardest to do, so he would usually avoid getting coffee to go, or ignore his phone while walking. It was now well into October, and the weather was a clear indication of the fact. It was always either windy, or windy while raining. It was difficult to catch some warmth outdoors these days, so Enjolras had gotten into the habit of wearing a heavy jacket when he was out.

The other problem with October, was that while it was too cold to not wear a jacket, it wasn't cold enough to wear one for long periods of time, and he often got too warm, then. It couldn't be helped, though. He hated rain, but he loved wind, and October was his favourite month. The colors of the leaves were eye-catching, especially when they littered the pavement around him, and since he had an umbrella, he didn't wonder why he was fine with stopping to check his phone. He didn't mind the weather and he was finding it increasingly difficult to put his phone down when he wasn't working at something. He pulled up the email and felt the corners of his lips tilt upwards in a smile. A message on tumblr from Grantaire.

 

> _“in Tesco buying rum for halloween barely five minutes past 10am with my boss watching; no more relaxing till duty for me.”_

They'd been speaking for about two weeks now, ever since Enjolras dropped him a message one day after the notification of a new follower. He had a habit of browsing the first page of every blog that followed him and usually made the decision on whether or not to follow back based on that first page. When he saw the initial R in the description-- well, after adding Éponine on facebook, it seemed perfecty logical to send a message. He hadn't even looked at the rest of the blog until later that day. He remembered Grantaire's remark on Grantaire-who-lives-with-Éponine making him snort audiably when he read it, and before he knew it he was typing out a sarcastic, but good-humored apology in response. From there, they went on to discuss their mutual friends of Marius and Éponine, and then the rest of the group. Enjolras had grinned at his screen more than once at Grantaire's descriptions of their friends, and he'd gone to sleep that night feeling much less worried about getting left behind. Éponine and Grantaire seemed very easy to get along with.

He found it odd that he spoke to Éponine perhaps twice in comment threads on facebook since he added her, yet had now spoken to Grantaire every day for two weeks since leaving that first message, considering he had actually met Éponine. He didn't even know what Grantaire looked like, he thought suddenly when he tried to imagine him being stared down by an angry boss in the off-license isle. He'd read back on Grantaire's blog while in his bed a few days after they started speaking until he got tired and put his phone away, but he saw no pictures of him. He went back to his home screen to find his tumblr app, tapping into his messages almost mechanically, he was so used to doing so by now. He typed quickly--

 

> _"when you're on till duty you're complaining about the people and when you're stacking shelves you're complaining about not being on till duty, you're impossible to please"_

\--made sure it was set to answer privately, and sent it, walking on quickly. All his friends were preparing for Courfeyrac's big Halloween party tomorrow, if both Courfeyrac and Grantaire were to be believed. Marius had heard about it too from Éponine, and both he and Marius had agreed that they would have to find something to do apart from sit at home watching horror movies, or they'd both become far too depressing to stand each other. Since that, though, they hadn't spoken much more on plans, so it seemed that horror movies and drinks at home were inevitable. Grantaire had promised him a drink-by-drink report, and he really wasn't sure what to expect.

He stuffed his phone deep into his pocket and held the umbrella with both hands again, determined not to take it out again until he'd made it home. Breakfast was hanging in a plastic bag from the crook of his elbow, and Marius was probably awake by now. Some of the other English students had invited the both of them to dinner late afternoon, so they'd decided to have a big, late breakfast and to skip lunch. He wasn't sure whether to mention to Grantaire or not that he was going to make an omelette-- he seemed to find some amusement in Enjolras' stories of cooking, and-- he shook his head to clear his thoughts of the messages, filling his mind with plans for the day for a while instead.

Marius had not been up, he'd discovered, and still wasn't up half an hour later when Enjolras had moved from his phone to his laptop, and swapped from answering Grantaire's messages to responding to his fanmail since the other man had hit his asking limit already. He sounded excited for Courfeyrac's, and his excitement was getting infectious. Enjolras itched to be up and doing something, even if just to distract himself from how much he was going to miss his friends this weekend. When he heard Marius' door click open, he looked up in time to see him stumbling through the doorway, rubbing at his eyes.

“About time, I've been waiting to make breakfast.”

“What time is it?” Marius looked around, squinting, his voice heavy.

“It's just gone noon,” he said, waving a hand. “Sorry, I'm just hungry and not very good at sitting around right now.”

Marius frowned blearily at Enjolras as he made his way toward the kettle, flicking it on. “Are you alright?” Even when sleepy, Marius wasn't one to let a bad mood go unadressed. Something, Enjolras suddenly remembered in a flash of memory, he said picked up from knowing Grantaire. _'I don't mean to bug you, I'm just used to it. My friend R'll sit in a bad mood thinking the worst of something for days if we let him.'_ He hadn't really noticed that in the cheerful man he'd been speaking to so far, but it hit him then that Grantaire rarely talked about himself beyond complaining about the amount of people on the train or a bad-smelling customer.

“I'm alright,” he said eventually, glancing at his laptop. “Homesick, I suppose.”

“Me too,” Marius nodded, looking down at his feet. “I've actually been thinking...” Enjolras looked over again when he trailed off, focussed on his own toes apparently.

“.....Yes? Was there more or were you just letting me know?”

Marius blinked and looked up, rolling his eyes with a smile. “Ha ha. It's nothing, I'm not awake yet.”

Huh. That was strange, for Marius. If he didn't want to talk about... whatever that was, though, Enjolras wasn't going to push him. He didn't really know how to approach that sort of thing with people. He could tell when there was something wrong, but he lacked tact when it came to trying to comfort them, or even figuring out for himself exactly what was wrong. “Are you hungry?” he asked instead. He didn't know whatever was wrong or what Marius needed, but food seemed like a good road to go down. People always needed food. “I was going to make an omelette, since it turned out okay last time.”

“I quite liked it last time, do you need help with anything?” Marius offered, looking around for something to make himself useful with.

Enjolras shook his head. “Make me some tea while you're over there, that'll be fine.” He refreshed his inbox to reply to anything unanswered before going off to make food, and although there was no new message from Grantaire, he found himself clicking the reply button on a fanmail he'd already replied to, and pausing for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He and Grantaire hadn't really talked about anything but their friends and their daily activites, he wasn't sure if Grantaire was up for listening to his musings. Might as well try, though.

 

> _"Marius is acting strange, he seems sort of down. I already know he's missing everyone this weekend with the party and everything, because we both are and we talked about it, but I dunno. He doesn't want to talk about whatever this is, so I don't think it's just homesickness. You know him pretty well, any suggestions to cheer him up? I'm about to make an omelette."_

He sent it, and closed the laptop before Marius could see anything, and went to gather his ingredients. Grantaire must have been working, because he didn't reply until Enjolras was out in a café with Marius, waiting for the other English students, and he never messaged while he was at work. Enjolras tuned out the conversation around him while he read the response.

 

> _'that's a tough one, ponine's being weird too, maybe something happened with them? I can't really talk about it for her sake if that's what it is (hopefully you'll read enough from that cause then I didn't TECHNICALLY tell you ;D), but it's hard to think of what to do with him when he won't say what's up. I can ring him tonight if you want me to, and you can imessage me if you need me, but I'd just suggest keeping him busy. ALSO, keep yourself busy for that matter; didn't know you were both down about the party. 3 more months, though, and they all miss you just as much.'_

An apple ID followed at the end of the message, and Enjolras wondered why he didn't think to ask for it before now. Come to think of it, he should really add Grantaire on facebook, too. Would there be pictures of him there? He knew Marius would show him some if he asked, but he wanted to keep the curiosity to himself, though he wasn't sure why. It was just a pleasant curiosity to have and he didn't feel like sharing it. He read the last 2 lines again, a warmth spreading in his chest as he did so. Grantaire's concern was-- he wasn't really sure what it was, but he definitely felt better, and he was determined to take the advice and cheer Marius up too. He added the ID as a contact, and opened up the message window.

 

> _'Testing? If this works, I'm at a café with Marius and the other English students, I'll try to get him talking with a few of them. Also, thank you.'_

He locked his phone and looked up on time to greet two of their group arriving, speaking up as everyone introduced themselves and very pointedly introduced Marius, too, who was too quiet. He only went back to his phone after they'd exchanged pleasantries and the two had gone off to order drinks.

 

> _'Wow, you took that advice pretty quick, lmao. Talking is good, it'll give him something else to talk about. No need to thank me unless I'm actually useful, lemme know how it goes!'_

Enjolras shook his head, smiling gently.

 

> _'I meant thank you for what you said to me. It helped, so thank you. And we were coming here to meet people anyway :P'_

“Sorry I'm late!”

Enjolras jumped as he hit send, drawn from his thoughts by the new voice. He and Marius both looked up to the newcomer at the same time, a short, blonde girl with huge eyes and a nervous smile. He stood up to offer a handshake after she shook off her jacket, her floral shirt catching his eye for a minute. “I think we're early, actually, people have only just starting arriving. I'm Enjolras.”

She took his hand, gave it a firm shake, and nodded. “I know, I have History with you, but I didn't realize you were part of the exchange group until just now. I'm Cosette.”

“Really?” Enjolras thought back to any History lecture he could remember, his memory failing him. “Oh, well, it's nice to meet you. This is Marius,” he added suddenly, leaning to the side to gesture to his friend.

Marius stood, too, eyes wide and with none of the grace Enjolras had, banging his knees on the table noisily, knocking over Enjolras' coffee. He bent in an attempt to catch it, too late, and Enjolras and Cosette jumped back to keep their feet dry. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll just--” He searched the table frantically for something to wipe up the mess with, and Cosette laughed, while Enjolras moved to stand apart, amused. He had a small, tiny inkling that maybe Marius liked the girl. He shook his head, breathing a laugh with Cosette, and waved a hand at Marius.

“Leave it, Marius, I'll go get some napkins and a new coffee. Find her somewhere dry to sit, perhaps?” He suggested, raising an eyebrow and letting his eyes flick to his own seat beside Marius when he was sure he was looking. Marius nodded, and Enjolras turned to Cosette. “Would you like something while I'm up? On Marius, for making such a mess, of course.”

Cosette took her eyes away from Marius for a second, grinning at Enjolras, then looking at Marius again, moving forward when Marius stepped sideways to offer Enjolras' chair. “That's very sweet, Marius, I'll have an unsweetened cappuccino.”

Feeling rather accomplished in the area of distracting Marius, Enjolras made his way to the counter again, drawing out his phone.

 

> _'Sounds like you had everything under control, then, heaven knows what you need me for!'_

He huffed out a silent laugh, and set to typing.

* * *

 

“She doesn't go to the same uni as us but she's only half an hour away on the Tube, and you'll never believe this, but--” Marius only stopped speaking to chew and swallow his cereal.

Enjolras sat in a stool across from him, elbows resting on the table and chin in his left hand. He schooled his expression, raising his eyebrows to appear enthusiastic and interested when Marius was looking, but with every word Marius spoke, Enjolras knew more trouble was to come. It was only when he ordering for himself and Cosette, telling Grantaire what had happened, when Grantaire reminded him of what he said about Éponine and Marius, and that in turn made him stop to think for a few minutes. When it hit him, he felt like kicking himself. How did he read right over that part? How could one person be so stupid when it came to reading other people and emotions? He wondered why his friends even put up with him. When he responded with a simple 'oh shit', Grantaire made comment about how Éponine was going to be crushed. Enjolras had not responded. He hadn't gone on tumblr for the rest of the day, and had not been on this morning either. He had gone home alone when Marius told him that he and Cosette were going to stay a while longer, and had only gone to sleep when, from his bed, he heard Marius get back just after midnight.

“--but, she knows Éponine, she said, apparently they were both fostered together for a while. I didn't even know Éponine was in the foster system when she was younger, she never mentioned but I suppose it's not something she'd want to bring up. I should get on skype and tell her--”

“I'm sure Éponine is going to be completely thrilled that you're learning something she obviously wanted kept secret from you from someone else, should this girl even be telling you all of this? Did neither of you think of that?” Enjolras interrupted. His phone beeped twice in his pocket during the silence that followed. Éponine wasn't a great friend of his, but he still felt some responsibility for the situation. Grantaire had tried to warn him, and he really wanted to be happy for Marius, but it was difficult when he knew it was about to cause a rift between Marius and his two closest friends. He had a feeling Grantaire would take Éponine's side in whatever she decided to do. If they stopped speaking-- would Enjolras be ignored along with Marius? He wasn't really sure how these things went, and his confusion was frustrating him.

Marius was looking at him, spoon hovering between his mouth and his bowl. “...I'm sorry. I didn't think of that.”

“No, I'm sorry.” Enjolras sighed heavily and ran his hands through his hair. His phone beeped again. “I didn't mean to snap at you, it's not your fault and it's not Cosette's. I just think you should.... be considerate in what you say.” He couldn't exactly demand that Marius ignore her, he knew they'd have to speak. He just wished he could tell Marius. How did Grantaire do this all the time?

“No, you're right, I wasn't thinking. I won't mention that Cosette knows her, then, and if she says anything I'll pretend to be surprised.” He lifted his spoon and his bowl, half-standing as he watched at Enjolras. “Are you okay? Your phone was--”

Enjolras nodded before he could finish. “It's fine, I'll check it now. Marius?” He called, when Marius had deposited his dishes in the sink and was about to leave. “Sorry again.” Marius smiled and nodded to him once, before heading to his room.

Once he had left, Enjolras pulled out his phone. An email telling him that Grantaire had left him a message, two unread iMesssages, and one unread text from Combeferre. He didn't want to check Grantaire's messages as it would tell him that Enjolras had seen them, and he didn't feel like figuring out how to turn off that function right now, so he skipped to Combeferre's text.

 

> _'How did the dinner go? Any plans tonight? Courfeyrac says he wishes you were here today.'_

Enjolras wished he was there, too.

* * *

 

**[GRANTAIRE] October**

 

Enjolras had not contacted him since yesterday. Grantaire didn't care. He had no reason to care. They'd never even met, and maybe Enjolras changed his mind about adding a practical stranger on iMessage. Maybe he decided Grantaire was sticking his nose in too much, when he and Marius were just trying to enjoy an evening with friends. If any of that was the case, Grantaire definitely didn't care. He had no reason nor right to care.

He was faintly worried about the possibility that something had happened, at first, but then Éponine had spoken to Marius and mentioned nothing about any accidents or illnesses with either him or Enjolras, but then again, she did have more pressing things to think about. They were walking to Courfeyrac's, carrying a bag of booze each, and when he looked over at her, Éponine was completely composed, her make-up perfect, heavy winged eyeliner and dark lipstick to set the Halloween mood, her hair glossy and straightened. No one would have thought to look at her that until an hour ago she'd been lying with her head in Grantaire's lap, eyes red from crying and gripping the fabric of his jeans as she said nothing.

Oh, she'd said plenty before that, bursting from her room with the tears fresh, crying the whole story into his shirt. It was her worst fear come to reality. Before, she could tell herself that Marius just didn't have romantic interests, that there was still hope for her one day, but after yesterday, she couldn't deny that he would just never see her that way. Grantaire had led her to the couch, whispering reasurrances and running his hand through her hair when she lay down, trying not to think about how horrible of a person he was. He'd known this was coming and he did nothing to warn her. Even now he was still thinking about himself, what he said to suddenly drive Enjolras away, when his best friend needed him.

So, making their way up to Courfeyrac's front door, he decided to think of Enjolras as little as possible tonight. He sent a few texts earlier, but he would send no more. Éponine knew that they spoke, and that he'd heard nothing all day, but he wasn't going to mention it to the others if Enjolras hadn't. He was going to make sure Éponine had a great time. He reached up to ring the doorbell, and waited, looking over when Éponine took his hand.

“Let's ge so pissed that we don't even remember their names. Agreed?”

Grantaire squeezed her hand in return. “I was going to do that anyway, but I'm more than happy to join you.”

Courfeyrac pulled the door open to them, and Grantaire was grateful that they were a little late when he found everyone else was already into their drinks. It meant he could get straight to business.

* * *

 

**[ENJOLRAS] November**

 

Enjolras checked his phone when he woke up-- nothing so far. It didn't really surprise him, London was an hour behind him, which meant eleven in the morning for him was much too early for anyone back home to be awake yet after a party. He and Marius had watched stupid movies until late, each with their own drinks but neither saying much. Marius, Enjolras had learned, was worried about Éponine after she left their earlier conversation very suddenly and hadn't spoken to him since. Marius had no idea why. Enjolras wasn't very surprised.

By the time he turned in, he wasn't really prepared to stand up after hours sitting drinking in one spot, and walking to his room proved to be even more difficult and he found himself stumbling a few times. His limbs all felt heavier and longer than they had any right to be as he changed into pyjamas, and against his better judgement, he reached for his phone once he was in bed. He didn't send anything but one text.

> _'I'm sorry. Hope you have fun tonight.'_

No reply last night, or this morning. Hopefully it just meant that Grantaire was too busy enjoying himself to respond.

He stretched out in his bed, yawning, and pulled away the covers to get up. He felt pretty good, physically-- a dry mouth and a pounding in the back of his head, but nothing that a glass of cold orange juice, followed by a cup of coffee and some panadol wouldn't cure. No sign of Marius, yet. In retrospect, he felt rather stupid for ignoring Grantaire. It wasn't his fault that Enjolras had messed up, and Enjolras should at least give him the opportunity to get annoyed with him for it instead of just disappearing like a coward. He didn't feel like he was running when he stopped reading and stopped responding, but now that he was thinking clearer, it was obviously what he was doing. And he actually missed talking to him, a lot. He really hoped last night went well.

He set the kettle to boil and sat down with his orange juice, flipping his laptop open. Grantaire hadn't posted anything on tumblr except what came from his queue. He swapped to Facebook, and found that none of the rest of the group had been online yet either. His phone beeped, suddenly, and he almost fell out of his stool reaching for it. Marius texting? But--

> _'Sorry if you're asleep, gone for breakfast with Cosette, be back soon enough.'_

He thought Marius had just been out of it in his room, but it seemed he'd been up and about far earlier, for once. He buried the disappointment that it wasn't Grantaire, standing instead to make his coffee and take his painkillers. He spent the next hour on the couch waiting for the panadol to kick in, watching some X-Factor repeats without really paying attention, because he'd just get annoyed if he did. He didn't notice when he started to get tired and doze off, and he didn't wake until, a few hours later, the noise of his phone roused him, beeping and vibrating where he left it on his chest. It took him a few moments to become fully alert, blinking against the light of the afternoon sun and reaching for his pockets at first, before he remembered. When he saw the notification on screen, he put his lock code in wrong at first in his rush to read it.

> _'Woke up with a black eye in Ponine's friend's house. Don't know who he is but he's making me breakfast. Had worse nights, that was a pretty successful one. Please don't be sorry.'_

He almost went to call when he read it, before stopping himself to think about whether that would be strange or not. He'd never heard Grantaire's voice, and Grantaire had never heard his. He would probably sound terrible if he tried to phone right now, anyway, his throat had turned to sandpaper while he was sleeping.

> _'If waking up with a black eye means a good night I'm not sure if I should ask if you're alright or not, but I'm glad it went well. I really am sorry, though. I'll let you get back to breakfast and we'll talk later?'_

Some tension left his shoulders, and he leaned back in the couch with a sigh. Grantaire's idea of a good night would be a disaster to him. He's had plenty of black eyes, but they were always obtained with good reason, and he'd never woken up in a strangers house before. He breathed out a laugh. Grantaire was strange.

> _'I'll tell you all about it when I get home. I'm typing with one hand and eating pancakes with the other, this is dedication.'_
> 
> _'I'm flattered :P Give me your skype later and we can type faster. Enjoy pancakes.'_

* * *

 

**[GRANTAIRE] November**

 

Winter was Grantaire's favourite season.

He loved when it started to get cold, he loved wearing big coats and hats and gloves, and he loved waking up shortly after dawn to see the early morning mists and the eeriness of a clear sun that gave off no heat. He loved December even more, the tense freezing and the black ice and the heavy sky, waking up everyday and going straight to the window to see if it snowed yet. But November was good, too. November was also passing much faster than he realized.

Éponine was having a difficult time of it. Marius had gone on a proper date with Cosette the week they met, and four dates later, they were officially seeing each other. She was handling it a lot better than he thought she would, and it was probably good, for the first time all year, that Marius was not here. It made it easier for her. He only hoped that by the time February came around, she'd have adjusted to the idea. Enjolras often conveyed his sympathy for the situation, even though both of them knew Grantaire wouldn't tell Éponine that Enjolras knew, and they both also agreed that they were happy for Marius. Cosette seemed to mean a lot to him, though Enjolras said he was noticing Éponine becoming more distant. Better that way, Grantaire thought. Let her take time to get used to it, and by the time he came home, everything would be as close to normal as it could be.

When he wasn't entertaining Éponine, he was doing his usual. Studying, working, and drinking, though mostly on weekends. It happened so gradually that he didn't notice it until one evening when Enjolras was busy, but less and less of his evenings were spent drinking ever since they exchanged skype usernames. He was even keeping in touch with the rest of the group more, now that he was actually signing in. He became so distracted that he didn't even think of bringing a bottle of something with him to his laptop, and only on the evenings when he had nothing else to do did he itch for one. He didn't poke at that revelation too much, though, in case he ruined it by just thinking about it. He still had his mood swings, and it was almost easy to hide from Enjolras considering he was just words on a screen to the other man, but every now and again incidents like Halloween happened again, when one of them made the other angry for reasons neither of them could fully understand, and they sometimes went days without speaking. Enjolras always broke the silence by saying sorry, and Grantaire always asked him not to be. It was mostly his own fault, anyway.

With every day that passed, it was getting harder to deny that he was falling for the intense blond student who had never so much as seen his face. It started to get so hard that he eventually just stopped denying it to himself, at least, and Éponine picked up enough to not try to ask him about it after the first time she made a serious attempt to. After that, well-- talking to Enjolras was both easy and difficult. Easy because one word on a screen from him could light up Grantaire's whole day, no matter what was happening. Difficult because he felt like he was deluding himself. There were many days when he felt like just curling up in his bed and never getting out because no matter how many jokes he cracked or how many of his problems Enjolras trusted him with, there would never be a day when they would be equal in this, because in real life Grantaire could never live up to whatever expectations Enjolras might make of him from online, if he ever expected anything.

For all he knew, speaking to Grantaire could just be a list of things Enjolras did with his day and nothing more than that. Grantaire felt like he was pushing it, to think Enjolras felt anything about their strange internet friendship at all, nevermind going so far as to assume Enjolras would ever feel anything for Grantaire himself. Enjolras had never seen him, never heard his voice, never seen the mess he could make of his life if he stopped caring. The day he did meet Grantaire as nothing but himself would be a disaster, so why bother at all? Grantaire just couldn't help himself.

He was walking home from work one evening in the last week of November, after a late shift, walking on grass instead of on the pavement when he could manage it, his back still sore after slipping on a small patch of ice last week. He was dying for a cup of strong, dark tea and his bed after the long day, so he couldn't help grumbling a little when his phone started ringing and he had to pull off his gloves to answer it.

His anger dissipated almost instantly when he saw who was calling. He was almost afraid to answer, and when he eventually dragged the answer button across the screen with a shaking hand, he was incredibly self-conscious about how he was going to sound. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He cleared his throat.

“Hello?” He sounded a lot more confused than he meant to, but-- well, Enjolras had never called him before, had never even suggested a skype call, so it was pretty out of the blue.

He could hear music and distant voices on the other end of the phone, then a sharp intake of breath. _“You're not at work.”_

“No, I'm not at work,” he answered, taking a few unsteady steps as his face threatened to break into a smile. He'd almost forgotten that voice, hadn't heard it since Éponine and Marius' call that felt like so long ago, now. “I'm walking myself home in the freezing cold.”

There was a pause, and he heard the music and the voices fading away, as if Enjolras was moving to a more quiet spot. _“Say again?”_

He laughed at that. “I'm walking home.”

_“I'm at the party. With Marius.”_ Another pause. _“Well, he's inside, but-- you know what I mean.”_

“An hour ahead of me, and you're still up,” Grantaire pointed out, letting the smile happen. He was nowhere near tired anymore. He wasn't even cold anymore, though he was still shaking. “I'm impressed. Why are you out in the cold phoning me, though?”

Enjolras didn't answer right away-- these pauses seemed to be a habit, and Grantaire wondered if he always stopped to think before speaking aloud, or if it was just because he had probably been drinking a little. Out of the two of them, if Grantaire had to guess which one would be most likely to drunk dial the other, he would have guessed himself. _“I remembered that I didn't know what you sound like.”_

Grantaire was the one to let the silence grow this time, interrupted only by his own breathing as he walked, trying to calm the butterflies in his stomach and trying not to get his hopes up. “And it was important to find out at 1am when you're supposed to be having fun? This must be very anti-climatic for you.”

_“I couldn't figure out what I thought you would sound like, actually,”_ Enjolras replied quickly for the first time. _“So hearing you at all is like--”_

“....probably not that interesting now that it's happening?” he finished, when Enjolras didn't.

_“No. No, it's good. To have a voice to put to everything, I mean.”_ There was no background noise anymore. _“Now all we need are faces.”_

“I know what you look like,” Grantaire felt like pointing out. “You've tagged pictures on tumblr, and Marius has uploaded a few.”

_“That's not fair,”_ Enjolras laughed, he actually laughed, and there was no background noise anymore so it was only Enjolras in his ear. _“I haven't seen any of you.”_

“Oh you're luckier for it, don't worry.”

_“You do that a lot, you know.”_ He spoke a little quieter. _“You put yourself down a lot. I wish you wouldn't.”_

“It's only because I'm better educated on the subject. Also, you're drunk, I believe.”

_“I am not,”_ Enjolras paused again, as if he was deciding whether or not he was going to get away with the objection. _“Just because I said it with a drink in my hand doesn't mean I'm not-- thinking it anyway. I think you should get a second opinion, actually.”_

“On your sobriety, or on me?”

_“You,”_ Enjolras spoke through a laugh.

Grantaire wasn't sure where he got the courage to ask, “And what's your opinion?”

Enjolras chose that moment to take another one of his long pauses, and Grantaire heard him huff a breath into the phone. _“I-- should go... find Marius, again, or....”_

“Of course.” Grantaire responded, voice dry. He was almost grateful. He probably wasn't ready to know the answer anyway, not yet. He could almost guess what it would be, and the day he knew the answer for certain was the day the rest went away with it. He'd never be able to talk to Enjolras, or look at a picture of him, or try to draw him again, and he couldn't remember what he did before he had any of that, had no idea how to go back. He really, really felt for Éponine. He truly understood how strong she was, in that moment.

_“Grantaire,”_ Enjolras pressed, probably sensing his mood declining.

Grantaire stopped walking. Nobody else called him by his full name, anymore. “Yeah?”

_“Thanks for talking to me?”_ He wasn't sure why Enjolras phrased that has a question, but he laughed anyway.

“No problem?”

He heard Enjolras give another quiet laugh before hanging up.

* * *

 

**[ENJOLRAS] December**

 

Enjolras never phoned Grantaire without asking again, slightly mortified with himself even before he hung up. He hadn't been drunk, not really, but he hadn't been totally sober either. He couldn't get the idea of hearing and seeing Grantaire out of his mind, though, and it seemed like a good idea until he realized he would've preferred to have phoned him for the first time when he had something more sensible to talk about. Thankfully, Grantaire didn't seem to mind all that much.

There was a post on his blog about it the next morning, laughing at Enjolras' expense, and he laughed along easily, reblogging it and adding his own comment. These long threads of text sort of became a thing for the two of them-- both their followers often commented on it, and they spoke on their dashboards so often these days that they actually shared quite a few followers after a while. Grantaire's typing became more and more ridiculous as the threads went on, moving to text speak when he was being sarcastic and breaking into caps lock with no pattern at all.

“Oh what is that?”

_“What's what?”_

Enjolras adjusted his headset, shaking his head at his dashboard. “That picture you just added.”

_“You've never seen Gran Torino?”_ While Enjolras never called Grantaire without asking, they often had skype calls that lasted an entire evening while they worked on assignments or poked around on their laptops. Enjolras had never asked for a video call, though. He felt a nervous constriction in his chest everytime he thought about it that both confused and unnerved him.

“That's whatever film the picture's from?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at the picture of Clint Eastwood added to a text post Enjolras had made about Marius and Cosette watching The Notebook in the living room while he hid in his own room.

_“It's a great film, I connected with his character on an emotional level, actually. I aspire to be as grumpy as him when I grow up.”_

“When you grow up,” Enjolras agreed, nodding to himself. Grantaire was an eternal child in some ways, but an old soul in others. “Did you know Marius is maaking a tumblr for Cosette soon? They're going to be all over our dash.”

_“Oh, ew, good thing 'Ponine never uses hers. How come only the three of us use it?”_

He could hear Grantaire moving around on his end, and he shrugged, forgetting he couldn't see. “I don't know. Combeferre couldn't figure out how to use it, and he gave up. Courfeyrac said he'll get one when he gets tired of Twitter, but he thinks Jehan has a secret one, for his writing.”

_“Oh, I'd like to see that, actually.”_

“Mmm,” Enjolras nodded absently, having located the ebook he'd been searching for. “I'm going to have to go, in a minute, I found the book and I need to go get my credit card, add it to paypal so I can buy it.”

_“Go, then, I'm just sitting here anyway.”_

“I'll have to sign off after I buy it, though, I need to read it. And you're distracting,” he added, breathing a quiet laugh.

_“You're just saying that.”_ Enjolras winced at the sudden noise in his ear, as if Grantaire was pulling at his microphone. _“Talk in the morning, then? 'Ponine and me are heading out in about an hour and a half.”_

“Oh?”

_“Yeah, that pretty friend of hers from Halloween has invited us out to his birthday. He says he owes me some drinks, but to be honest I don't remember much.”_

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. “Pretty?” Grantaire had mentioned running into Éponine's friend, she'd called him Monty, a few times since Halloween, but he'd never described him as pretty before.

_“He's very dressy, I probably said already. If you text me at 9am again, though, I swear to god. Give me a few hours grace for the hangover.”_

Enjolras had forgotten the time difference for a moment last week, thinking that Grantaire was bound to be up at ten on a weekday, but he'd received a short 'fuck off' in response and had spent 5 hours wondering what he'd done wrong. “Just let me know when you're up, it's easier that way.”

_“Alright, will do. Good luck with the paper.”_

He could already hear Grantaire removing his headset, so he hovered over the 'end call' button while returning the goodbye, and signed off once he was done so that no one else would disturb him. He wanted to go make a cup of tea and bring it back with him while he read, but he also didn't want to disturb Marius and Cosette. Fuck it, he thought. He needed to go get his credit card anyway, might as well do it all in one go so that he was only disturbing them once.

He muttered a general apology when he walked in front of the TV, making his way past them to the kitchen and making as little noise as possible while he searched for his wallet and boiled the kettle. He was jumpy, suddenly, pacing while waiting for his tea and tapping his fingers on the countertop while he made it. He couldn't get comfortable in his chair when he went back to his room, and sat staring at his screen ten minutes later when he had the book opened in front of him. He read the first line maybe fifteen times when he decided he needed a walk to get rid of whatever was annoying him. He tried to figure out what it was, as he sat on his bed to pull his shoes on. It wasn't that he was tired-- he was actually feeling a lot more awake than he'd been all day. He noticed that he lacked the usual good mood after a call with Grantaire.

He didn't call out to let Marius know he was out when he had his scarf and coat on and was pulling the door closed quietly behind him. There was a circle of streets he could take that would take him back to their flat. His mind wandered for the first stage of his walk, earphones in and hands in his pockets as he watched his breath suddenly appear in the cold air almost as soon as he let it out. The jumpy feeling in his nerves-- the need to be up and moving around-- was gone, and he was feeling a little more clear-headed as he let his mind drift until his thoughts came back to him. He didn't even entertain the notion that it wasn't something to do with Grantaire that had put him in a strange mood, because he'd just be wasting his time. He had done very little that day that didn't involve Grantaire-- class had gone well, and he was on skype all evening with the exception of walking off to make dinner for an hour.

He figured it was about time he admitted a few things to himself, he thought. The first, was more of a fact than an admittance; rarely a day went by anymore during which he didn't speak to Grantaire. They texted before they went to class, texted during breaks, before and after Grantaire went to work, and when Enjolras was out. They spoke on tumblr and skype most evenings. The next thing, was that he'd started to need these interactions. They did argue quite a bit, mostly about Enjolras' social justice inclinations, and he swore to get to the bottom of why Grantaire was so set against them. When it wasn't just a difference in beliefs, they stopped speaking for days at a time because Enjolras would say something to offend Grantaire, and would never have any idea what it was. He hated when this happened, and Marius had commented that it made him impossible to be around for as long as it went on.

So yes, he needed the interactions. He needed to know what sort of mood Grantaire was waking up in each morning, how his day was progressing, and if he'd need distracting in the evenings to keep him away from the bottle. He liked knowing that Grantaire was okay, and he enjoyed their conversations so much that he couldn't remember how he passed time before them. He also really liked Grantaire's voice. He'd been shocked by how light it was, and how expressive Grantaire could be when he spoke. He hadn't noticed that, actually, until he heard him unamused and sarcastic. The difference was incredible. He'd also heard Grantaire sing to himself over skype, and had learned not to point it out because it made him stop.

So, in conclusion, he was starting to get very attached to a person countries away who he'd never even seen. And that person was currently heading out to enjoy himself, with people who were not Enjolras. Pretty people, apparently.

He stopped in his tracks at that thought, looking up at a streetlight ahead of him. He wanted to go home. He was homesick, for someone he'd never technically met. This was-- it was incredible, Grantaire was incredible, he thought, and he wasn't even shocked at how he was suddenly feeling now that he'd thought everything through, it had been building up anyway, but it was also bad. Enjolras was terrible with people. He knew that even before he had Combeferre and Courfeyrac to point out where he was going wrong, and while their attempts to teach him the correct train of thought for social situations had gone reasonably well, he was still far from being-- well, good at-- any of that. His thoughts were messy even thinking about it. He'd kissed people, but he'd never-- never grown an attachment to someone like this. It was terrifying.

Back at his flat, he leaned against his bedroom door for a few minutes after he'd closed it. He'd been calm outside when he was thinking and linking everything together, but now that he was back in a familiar setting, he decided he was insane. Grantaire would never-- They fought, and they argued over something as fundamental as Enjolras' beliefs, or Grantaire's lack of them. Grantaire wouldn't find that aspect of his personality-- well, appealing, and Enjolras had a tendancy to talk and talk until Grantaire had to speak over him to get a word in, and--

He was at a loss again. He'd never needed to think about how he appeared to other people beyond speeches and presentations. He'd never needed to ask himself if his personality or looks were appealing, and he felt like he was standing on thin ice with this. He was never put together very well-- his hair was a mess of curls and he was always forgetting to button his shirts and jackets right, and he was a pushy person, he knew that much. If they ever met in person, Grantaire would probably hate him.

He sighed as he sat down. There wasn't really an 'if' involved. He was going home in 2 months, they were bound to run into each other eventually. That thought had occurred to him before and he'd been looking forward to it, but now he was worried. He really needed help. He ran his finger randomly over his mouse pad to wake his laptop up, closing the amazon tab he'd been using to buy the book and running his hands over eyes while facebook and tumblr refreshed. He wished Marius wasn't busy, he was the only one aware of how much he and Grantaire had been speaking. He knew both of them, too, so if he had any insight it would probably be useful. He wasn't sure he wanted anyone to know, though.

His tea was cold, he'd completely forgotten about it, so he ignored it, pushing it to the side as he went to investigate a new post in his tag. He heard himself take in a deep breath.

> _Heading out. Enjoy a selfie, Enjolras has been asking for one._

Grantaire looked.... well, he couldn't say anything cliched like, 'exactly how he imagined', because he hadn't really imagined Grantaire looking like anything. He looked right, though. He suited the person Enjolras knew, and he felt like he knew him even more now that he saw him. It was a simple picture, he was holding his phone up to a mirror to photograph from the hips of his blue jeans upwards, dressed in a plain green zip-up hoodie, that was only zipped to halfway up his chest. He wasn't fully smiling-- it was more of a smirk, eyebrows raised. His hair was so dark...

Enjolras reached for his phone, scrolling through his contacts and choosing one, breathing carefully as he waited for it to answer.

_“Hello?”_

“Courfeyrac? Are you out or at home?”

_“I'm at home? I'm watching a film with Jehan. What's up? You never just call.”_

Enjolras listened to Courfeyrac move around, heard Jehan's voice in the background, and he decided he didn't really mind Jehan being on the other end of this conversation, too. After a length, when everything had gone quiet, he spoke. “How do you know when you-- when you genuinely like a person?” He hated how quiet his voice was when he asked it, and turned his chair around to stop himself from staring at the picture of Grantaire while he spoke.

_“Oh.”_ Courfeyrac said eventually. _“Oh. Well. Um. Jehan is here, is that alright?”_

“It's fine. I think he's part of the reason I phoned you.”

_“Oh, thanks, I'm useful for something, I suppose,”_ he joked, and there was a pause before the background noise increased while the two of them got settled. _“Alright you're on speaker. For Jehan's benefit, do you want to repeat the question?”_

Enjolras felt like throttling Courfeyrac. “I'm going to kill you when I get back,” he said, because he felt like the other man should know. “I asked, how do you know when you genuinely-- well, like a person.”

_“What makes you think you might?”_ Jehan answered with a question, and Enjolras was glad someone was taking this seriously at least.

“I'm not-- I don't know, I just think I do. It's stupid though.”

_“If you think it's stupid, it usually isn't, in these cases,”_ Courfeyrac interrupted. _“How well do you know-- is it a she, or a he?”_

_“Or a they?”_ Jehan added.

Enjolras thought about it for a minute. He didn't want them to know he was talking about Grantaire, but still, there wasn't much harm in clarifying a little. “......He. And pretty well, I like to think.”

_“I knew Jehan very well, too. Know,”_ he corrected himself, and Enjolras assumed Jehan made a face at that. _“So it was quite a shock when my feelings suddenly came and hit me in the face.”_

_“To him, not to me.”_ Jehan clarified. _“I was just bored waiting at that point.”_

Enjolras doubted Grantaire had gone through the same thoughts, and severely doubted that he was waiting around for Enjolras to do something. “I'm not sure this is the same,” was all he said.

_“Well, you know him pretty well, that's established,”_ Courfeyrac went on, each word running into the next. _“You enjoy his company?”_

“Yeah.”

_“You miss him when he's not around, more so than if it were just Courfeyrac or Combeferre?”_ Jehan continued.

“....Yeah.”

_“It's not me or Combeferre, is it? Or Marius?”_ Courfeyrac laughed suddenly, and there was a sudden thump when Enjolras guessed Jehan hit him.

“If it were you, I wouldn't be on the phone to you, would I? And no, it's not Combeferre or Marius.”

_“Someone you met while you were over there?”_

Enjolras thought about it. “Yes.” He wasn't really lying, he did happen to be in Paris when he met Grantaire.

_“And do you find him attractive?”_

He glanced over at the picture of Grantaire on his screen again, then looked away quickly, down at his shoes. “Yes.”

_“I know that what you asked wasn't really a yes or a no question,”_ Jehan observed. _“But it's sounding like you genuinely like him.”_

“But....”

_“What's the problem?”_ Courfeyrac asked gently.

“I don't know. I'm worried.” He didn't want to say the specifics out loud, or mention how unlikely it was for this to work out. He just really needed to speak to a friend. “I'm not sure what to do.”

_“Well,”_ Jehan sighed, his voice quiet. _“That's the bit only you can work out.”_

“Oh.” He wasn't really expecting for an answer on how to fix this, because there was nothing wrong, exactly. He wasn't familiar with the feelings, the nerves, the sinking sensation when he thought about how doomed the whole thing probably was, and he hated the frustration of being unable to make himself just stop. His friends couldn't really fix that for him.

_“Cheer up, Enjolras!”_ Courfeyrac's voice made him jump. _“This is a good thing!”_

“Is it, though?” He shook his head when he heard how ridiculous he sounded. “Nevermind, I'm just being-- you know. Thank you, though.”

_“I know, don't worry. I know. You'll have to keep me updated, you know, now that you've told me a little bit.”_

Enjolras laughed. “We'll see. Thank you, too, Jehan.”

_“No problem. Let us know, if you need anything?”_

“I will. G'night.”

That phonecall did not help at all. Well, it cleared up some of the confusion and uncertainty to have a second-- and third-- opinion, but he still didn't know what to do. He turned back to his desk to put his phone down, eyes falling on the picture of Grantaire again. He huffed out an irritated sigh, even with his lips trying to curve into a smile. An idea came to him, then, something that he thought of a while ago but that he held back from, for reasons he couldn't remember now that he'd seen this picture. He switched tabs to facebook, starting to type Grantaire's name into the search bar and clicking triumphantly when he found him almost right away, given that they had mutual friends. He never did get around to his reading that night.

* * *

 

**[GRANTAIRE] December**

 

That Christmas went on record as one of the best ones yet, for Grantaire.

It didn't start great. He and Éponine took the train home together on the twenty-first, and were comfortable enough around each other to stick their earphones in after half an hour and spend the rest of the journey ignoring each other to listen to music, with Grantaire texting Enjolras, who insisted he wasn't homesick, he was just regretting missing his grandmother's dinner, which he explained was the main reason he tolerated his family every year for the holiday. His mother picked them both up, and he definitely didn't tear up a little when he hugged her. He hadn't seen her since September, and he held her for thirty seconds before letting her go. She was shorter than him and had been for a few years now, and her hair was as dark as his, just much, much longer and entirely straight. He'd gotten his curls from his father.

They laughed and joked with Éponine for a while until they dropped her off at her homeplace, where they promptly picked her up again, along with Gavroche. “They normally wait for Christmas dinner to start the heavy drinking.” She said, face blank and running her hand through Gavroche's hair in the back of the car, ignoring her mother's shouts as they drove off. Éponine always insisted her mother didn't know what she was saying when she was like this, but Grantaire could see how the words hurt her.

“Well, we've got plenty enough for four for the two weeks,” his mother assured her, eyes on the road. “I got extra because I had a feeling you'd both be visiting, at least.”

Grantaire caught Éponine's eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled.

It sort of picked up after that. Gavroche forgot things faster than Éponine, so he was hijacking Grantaire's Xbox within an hour or two while she went for a long bath. By the next day, you wouldn't have thought it was strange for her and her little brother to be spending Christmas with them. Grantaire felt bad for enjoying it, given the circumstance, but it was nice to have them around. Enjolras text him, rather put out, when Marius confessed that he'd rather go out to a hotel or something for Christmas dinner rather than let Enjolras cook. Grantaire assured him that he would teach him how to cook, in February, and Enjolras didn't reply.

It was impossible to ignore his mother's questions about the person he was texting, though, and while he tried valiantly, he couldn't talk over Éponine as she divulged as much of the story as she knew. The thing that worried him the most, though, was that his mother didn't comment on it much at all. She didn't seem to approve or disapprove. He wasn't going to complain, though, not if she wasn't.

He tried not to, but sent a text to Enjolras at a few minutes past eleven on the twenty-third for him, saying simply;

> _'Happy Holidays. Eat loads of crap and watch loads of stupid movies in the morning.'_

He didn't expect Enjolras to be up, but he got a response anyway.

> _'Thanks for that. Thinking about you, too.'_

He put his phone to charge on the other side of the room and stayed awake for three hours thinking about those last four words. New Year's Eve came, and Enjolras text him at midnight this time. Grantaire tried not to think about how he must have waited until one by his own time to send it.

* * *

 

**[GRANTAIRE] January**

 

One more month. One more month until Enjolras was finished in Paris and he would be back in London, and Grantaire was starting to panic.

Enjolras knew what he sounded like and what he looked like, now, they'd had numerous video calls since Grantaire uploaded that selfie, and he'd actually uploaded a few more and had started tagging them, too. He was still worried that it would be different when they saw each other in person, that he wouldn't know what to talk about or that Enjolras would rather spend all his time with the others than with him. He knew he wasn't Enjolras' only friend, of course. He just knew that he'd want every spare moment Enjolras had for himself, once he was here.

There was always the possibility that he would mess things up again and a simple text sent seeking a truce wouldn't be enough to fix it. He told Éponine this, figuring it couldn't hurt to let it out, and she was patient enough to listen. He noticed that she'd been talking to Marius more over the last month, and since he was still dating Cosette, he assumed she wasn't as touchy about the subject of relationships anymore. He was reminded once again of how strong a person she was. She had no advice for him, not really, but it was nice to have her there assuring him that no matter what happened, whether it had something to do with Enjolras or not, he would always have her.

Back at uni, he was swamped with enough work that he didn't have time to worry about it for a while, his thoughts busied with papers and artwork and reading into every small word Enjolras directed at him. He was sitting at his laptop writing an essay for art history, skype running in the background and Enjolras' face in the corner of his screen, when he was surprised by Enjolras bringing it up first.

_“Oh, today's the fifteenth,”_ he said suddenly, after a few minutes of silence while Grantaire worked and he read.

“Mmm? Yeah?”

_“I come home in three weeks today.”_

Grantaire stopped typing, looking up at the calendar hung on the wall above him to check. “Oh, wow, you're right.” He paused, looking down at the screen again. “Three weeks today. Sad to be leaving?” He minimized the window he was working on, bringing skype up to fill the screen instead.

Enjolras was smiling gently. _“Yeah. But not really, at the same time. It was great here but I'll be glad to be home. I get in late and I'll be too tired on the fiftth but do you want to do something the day after?”_

Grantaire's chest felt very light as he thoght about it. “If you want? Yeah, sure.”

_“Whatever you want to do.”_ Enjolras shrugged, and Grantaire laughed.

“If you want to then I want to. We'll go for pizza or something.”

Enjolras laughed too, the noise quiet through the laptop speakers. _“It's gonna be weird. I mean-- I'm looking forward to it, but it's--”_ He looked away from his webcam, frustration written across his features as he searched for words.

“I know what you mean,” Grantaire said, even though he wasn't sure that he fully did. “I mean, it'll be awesome to hang out in person, but I'm used to seeing you moving on a screen, it'll be-- it'll take a minute to get used to you standing there in front of me.”

_“Pizza sounds great,”_ Enjolras grinned. _“I'm staying with Courfeyrac when I get back, I wasn't bothered paying a deposit on a dorm for three months. Marius, too.”_

“How does that work?”

_“Jehan's giving me his room, he says he lives in Courfeyrac's these days anyway. Marius gets the pull-out bed in the couch.”_

“Want me to go find you there? Or do you wanna just plan closer to the day?”

Enjolras shrugged again. _“Yeah, we'll decide sooner. I'm going to bed, it's nearly midnight for me.”_

“Fuck, you're right. I was writing this, I didn't notice.” Grantaire leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes. “Talk in the morning?”

_“Give me a text when you're up.”_

“Alright, later, then.”

He saved what he'd written of his essay so far, too tired suddenly to try to get a few more words in. In three weeks, he'd be sitting in Dominos or something with Enjolras sitting right across from him, in person. Right there. He wasn't sure how he was going to handle any of this. He was going to need a few drinks in him before he went out that day. He padded his way into the kitchen, passing Éponine on her laptop at the kitchen table and sneaking up behind her to hug her from behind. She heard him coming miles away, so she only folded her arms over his and tilted her head back to rest on his shoulder, looking up at him.

“You okay?”

“Enjolras is coming back in three weeks today.”

“Ah,” she said, taking his arms in her hands to disengage him, and rising to make her way to the kettle. “Worried?”

“We're meeting up the day after he gets back. How am I even gonna sleep that night? Where does Courfeyrac live again?” He asked each question without pause, getting a cup for each of them and following her.

“Courfeyrac?” She frowned. “Umm, beside the Musain, why?”

Graintaire gave a frustrated noise close to a growl. “He's gonna be a fifteen minute walk away, how am I going to sleep?”

Éponine grinned, glancing at him and back to the kettle. “I feel more sorry for you the more ridiculous you start to sound.”

He crossed his arms on the counter, and leaned over, resting his head on them. “I feel sorry for me, too.”

“It'll be fine,” she said, after a length, pouring tea for them both. “It'll be awkward at first but it'll be fine. Get the milk?”

He obliged, crossing the kitchen to reach into the fridge. “And if it does go okay? If we turn out to be really good friends in person, and just stay like that, never anything mo--” He cut himself off, suddenly realizing how insensitive he was being.

“Then you figure out how to make that enough.” She said, looking him right in the eyes when she took the milk from him. “There's nothing else to do, if you want to keep him.”

He nodded, and enveloped her in another hug, kissing her forehead.

* * *

 

**[ENJOLRAS] February**

 

> _'I'm meeting Enjolras in person in a week today, excuse me as I go smoke an entire pack of fags.'_

Enjolras grinned at his screen, liking the post immediately. One week. He couldn't believe it was almost here, or that his time in Paris was almost finished. He'd had a great time, learned so much and had so much to bring home with him. He didn't make very permanent new friends while he was over, unless Cosette counted, which, if Marius had anything to say about it, she very much did. Enjolras liked Cosette, though, and he made an even better friend of Marius, too, after living with him for over 5 months.

He was looking forward to seeing all his friends at home again, though, but if he was honest, he was more excited about meeting Grantaire. As excited as he could be while also being more nervous than he'd ever been in his life. The same fears were still there-- what if Grantaire hated him in person-- and he hadn't mentioned any of this to Grantaire, but he was optimistic. To an extent. He definitely believed they could be friends. He was both hopeful and terrified of the idea of anything else. There was a farewell party in a few days, and Enjolras had already started packing, just to be ready. He had actually set aside an outfit for the sixth, to be left untouched until then, so that he had something clean and decent to wear when he saw Grantaire. He felt ridiculous. Just thinking about that day had him supressing a grin while also trying to get his nerves under control.

There was also something else that had been bothering him. Neither of them had mentioned to anyone other than Marius and Éponine that they even knew each other, and Enjolras didn't want to lie about where he was going on the sixteenth. He was moving in with Courfeyrac for the next three months, and after that phonecall many weeks ago and the numerous ones since that demanding updates, his friend was going to figure it out. He had to prepare himself for that. At Marius' suggestion, he had actually closed himself into his room with the intention of phoning Courfeyrac there and then, but figured a few minutes of calming himself first, or procrastinating, whatever way you wanted to look at it, couldn't hurt. He really needed to get it done, though. He reluctantly closed the laptop with one hand, dragging his phone toward him with the other. Better just get it over with.

He moved to lie out on his bed while it was ringing.

_“Goooood evening, I thought you had packing still to do?”_

“Hi, Courfeyrac. Packing's done, actually, but thanks for assuring me that you'll always be there to nag when I don't need it.”

_“You're in a bad mood, I see.”_

Enjolras tapped the toes of his feet together. “Not really, not yet. It really depends on how unpleasant you're going to make this for me.”

_“Make what? I've barely said two words.”_

Enjolras sighed. “I have to tell you something, and you have to promise to ask me as little questions about-- about feelings and stuff as possible.”

_“....I'm listening.”_ Enjolras could hear a bit of rustling and a door closing as Courfeyrac moved. _“I'm at Combeferre's, but he's on the phone too and I'm ouside now.”_

“Okay. Okay, so.” Enjolras rubbing at an eye with the bottom of his palm, struggling to find his words. “I have to go meet someone, on the sixteenth, after I get back.”

_“Alright?”_ Courfeyrac prompted, after a moment when Enjolras said nothing.

“It's someone unusual,” he said, obviously stalling and mentally kicking himself for it.

_“I gathered, from this phonecall.”_

“It's Grantaire.”

Courfeyrac made a noise Enjolras didn't register. _“R? I didn't know you knew each other, he never mentioned. When did you even meet?”_

Enjolras swallowed. “Online. While I was over here.”

The words must have rung a bell for Courfeyrac, who suddenly fell into a monotone. _“Oh my god. Is he--? Oh my god.”_ A few seconds of silence followed. _“I have to tell Jehan.”_

“No, you don't, not right now, I just-- really didn't want to have this conversation next week, in front of everyone.”

_“Why didn't you **say**?”_

Enjolras gave an exhasperated noise. “I don't know? Because it's-- complicated.”

_“You said you knew him pretty well, how long have you been speaking?”_

“Since September? Ish?” he answered after a moment, thinking. “On tumblr. Then text. Then skype.” He rubbed his hand across his face, muffling his words. “Nearly every day.”

_“Oh my god.”_

“You said that already. Look, you've asked enough now, and-- well, you know now, so.”

_“I-- right, yeah. Do you want me to tell anyone else?”_

Enjolras was alright with mentioning it to the others, who were much less informed, next week, but he supposed Courfeyrac could save him some work. “I don't know. Tell Jehan, I suppose, you're going to anyway, but just let slip to the others that we know each other, they won't be too nosy when I go to meet him, then.”

_“Oh my god,”_ Courfeyrac repeated, once again, and Enjolras was ready to start cursing at him. _“You two've never actually met, I just realized, this is amazing, it's so--”_

“Don't start, please,” Enjolras cut across, voice hard. “It's-- I'm nervous enough, thank you.”

_“Nervous? Why on earth would you be nervous?”_

“I said enough questions. I'm going, now, I need to eat.”

_“I'm phoning Jehan.”_ Courfeyrac stated, and the determination in his voice was almost funny.

“Try to not tell the entire country, please,” Enjolras muttered darkly, even though he knew Courfeyrac would never say anything. “I'll talk to you later, or see you on Wednesday. Are you still bringing my car?”

_“Yep, me and Jehan are coming to collect you.”_

“Alright, thank you.”

_“All will be well next week, you'll see. Try not to let your head explode beforehand, he'll be very disappointed.”_

“Shut up, Courfeyrac.” He ordered, letting a little humor seep into his tone before hanging up, throwing the phone down on the bed beside him and letting out an explosive breath.


End file.
